It happened in real-time. You could almost hear the air leave the room.
In May 2019, Naomi Wolf sat down for a BBC Radio 3 interview with host Matthew Sweet. She was there to talk about her new book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love. The book’s big, shocking hook? That the British state was executing men for "sodomy" much later into the 19th century than historians previously thought. Wolf claimed she had found "dozens" of these executions in the historical records.
Then, Matthew Sweet said the words that would effectively dismantle her career as a serious historian. He pointed out that she had completely misunderstood a legal term. Specifically, the phrase "death recorded."
Wolf thought it meant the person was killed. In reality, it meant the exact opposite.
The "No No" Moment: A Thesis Collapses
When Sweet explained that "death recorded" was actually a legal mercy—a way for a judge to spare someone the gallows by merely noting a death sentence without carrying it out—Wolf’s response was a mix of stunned silence and a verbal scramble.
The phrase "Naomi Wolf no no" has since become a sort of shorthand for this specific brand of public intellectual faceplant. It’s that cringey, sinking feeling when someone realize their entire 400-page argument is built on a foundation of sand. Honestly, it’s hard to watch. You’ve got a Rhodes Scholar and a Yale grad being told, on air, that she didn't do the basic homework on Victorian law.
"I don't think you're right about this," Sweet said, his voice terribly calm and very British.
Wolf’s reaction wasn't just a simple "my bad." It was a pivot. She tried to argue that the climate of fear was still there, even if the executions weren't. But the damage was done. Her US publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ended up pulling the book from shelves.
Why This Wasn't Just One Mistake
Most people think the "no no" moment was just about that one legal term. It wasn't.
Historians like Fern Riddell eventually dug deeper and found that Wolf hadn't just misread the sentences; she had mischaracterized the crimes. Some of the "victims of the state" she highlighted in her book weren't men prosecuted for consensual gay sex. They were actually men convicted of sexually assaulting children or animals.
By framing these cases as "the criminalization of love," Wolf didn't just get the law wrong. She accidentally turned child abusers into martyrs for LGBTQ+ rights.
That is a massive "no no" in any academic circle.
The Long Pattern of "Wolf's Overdo and Lie Factor"
If you think this was a one-off fluke, you haven't been following the "WOLF" acronym. In 2004, a social scientist named Christina Hoff Sommers and others started using the term WOLF—Wolf’s Overdo and Lie Factor.
This goes all the way back to her breakout hit, The Beauty Myth. In that book, she claimed 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia. The actual number? Somewhere between 100 and 400. She had taken a statistic about the number of people suffering from the disorder and turned it into a death toll.
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She's always had a "loose" relationship with numbers.
- 1991: Misquoted anorexia death stats by about 149,000%.
- 2014: Suggested ISIS beheading videos were staged by the US government.
- 2019: The "death recorded" disaster.
- 2021: Banned from Twitter for claiming vaccines were a "software platform."
The "Doppelganger" Effect
Things got so weird that Naomi Klein—the other famous Naomi (author of No Logo)—wrote an entire book called Doppelganger about the experience of being confused with Wolf.
Klein describes watching Wolf descend into what she calls the "Mirror World." It’s a place where facts are secondary to the narrative. Wolf moved from being a liberal feminist icon to a regular guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room.
Basically, the "no no" wasn't just an interview blunder. It was the moment the mainstream world stopped taking her seriously, pushing her toward the fringes where "alternative facts" are the currency of the realm.
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What We Can Learn From the Outrages
If you're researching history or even just reading a "groundbreaking" new non-fiction book, here is how to avoid your own "no no" moment:
Verify the "Hero" Narrative
When an author tells you that every other historian in history missed a giant, obvious fact, be skeptical. History is crowded. If "dozens of executions" were missing, there’s usually a reason why—and the reason is usually that they didn't happen.
Context is Everything
A term like "death recorded" sounds like a death sentence to a modern ear. But languages change. Legal systems change. If you don't check the 19th-century definition of the words you're reading, you’re going to end up with a pulped book and a viral "no no" clip.
The "Bonkers Blender" Test
Naomi Klein says Wolf takes real concerns—like corporate power or government overreach—and puts them through a "bonkers blender." To stay grounded, always look for the primary source. If an author says 150,000 people are dying, ask to see the spreadsheet.
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Naomi Wolf's career is a masterclass in what happens when ideology outruns evidence. She is a brilliant writer, but as the BBC interview proved, brilliance doesn't protect you from being wrong.
Next time you see a "shocking" historical revelation, check the footnotes. Then check them again. It might just save you from a "no no" of your own.